7. Deserve's got everything to do with it

Do you have the balls to do what it takes? No? Then sit down and cry about fairness.

If you don’t have the guts and the balls to do it then you deserve to take orders for the rest of your life.

If you don't have courage, if you're a quitter or even worse … a never-get-started type … then you deserve to take orders for the rest of your life.

If you have guts and balls then you deserve victory and success.

8. There is no better time than right now

Some people say “I'll do it later.” Those people are losers. Winners know that there is no better time than right now.

Get used to saying this “I will do it right now.”

There is no such thing as tomorrow when it comes to accomplishment. You cannot put off accomplishment.

The only way you will get anything tomorrow is by doing the work right now. Prepare for tomorrow right now.

9. Don't waste time, time is very important

What is the biggest part of success? Showing up every single day.

Time is the most important thing we have so you must not waste it.

A wasted day turns into two wasted days turns into a wasted year.

Never waste time playing video games when you could play the funnest game there ever was…

High stakes living … The funnest game God ever made.

10. You have to be ahead of the game

If you want to win the game you have to be ahead of the game. How? It's easy to be ahead of the game.

Here's how you do it: Do the work today and reap the rewards tomorrow.

You're automatically ahead of the game if you do the work. That's how you become a futuristic visionary, by doing the work right now.

Today they'll say “relax, man, have a good time” and in 10 years they'll say “wow, how did you become so successful? What are your secrets?”

You'll say “The secret was starting THEN not starting now. I did the work THEN, you are only seeing the work now. That's the secret … actually do the work. While you are busy oooh'ing and aww'ing at the new stuff coming out, other people are locked in a room creating the next wave of doo-dads that will make you ooh and ahh.”

11. Create your own future

It's easy to be a visionary because the future is not set in stone. Like Machiavelli once said, the future is half fate and half will.

A handful of people mold the future. The people who work hard today are the people who's future vision we all live in.

Visionairies shape the future because they're planning, building and dreaming while reactionaries are filing complaints about yesterday.

It's up to you to mold your future and you mold the future by starting today.

The ideas in your head today can become tomorrow's reality … If you do the work to make it tomorrow's reality.

12. To make tomorrow great, start today with discipline

Many people think success is a big, huge, impossible set of tasks so they never even try.

People make success sound so hard it becomes impossible. If they actually tried they'd find that success is easy and not hard.

People do too much of the things that don't matter and they don't do enough of the things that matter.

What matters most? The fundamentals matter the most. Anything that takes you away from the fundamentals is steering you off course.

To find success you strip away all that shit and keep the basics.

Start with the smallest habits because they make the biggest difference as detailed in the groundbreaking discipline strategy ebook 30 Days of Discipline.

Now you are YOU and you follow your rules, you don't follow the weekends off rule for slaves.

The only thing that matters is your goal and if you picked the right business, not only will you never take days off … if you happen to have a day off you will feel nervous and anxious to get back to work.

Days off KILL MOMENTUM! You cannot constantly take a break if you expect to improve.

Only take breaks when the operation is running smoothly without you. Even then, you'll never really be able to take a break.

It's easy to turn your mind off of work when you hate your job, but when you're obsessed your mind never turns off.

Like the gamblers who are addicted to gambling, you'll be addicted to the game of business.

25. Play the game to win

It's all a big game. If you don't learn how to play it, you're gonna get played. If you aren't the one taking advantage, you're the one being taken advantage of.

It's like a high stakes poker game. One wrong bluff and you lose everything, but believing one wrong bluff can wipe you out too.

It's a very narrow line and that's the fun of it. Like drugs but better.

Comments

Excellent article as always Victor, thanks for the continued inspiration! I especially like #19 as most people never grasp that performance always precedes big pay. I use an analogy of a baseball player batting .200 in the minors…until they up their stats they get no chance in the Big Leagues. This example tends to resonate well with people.
Happy 34th and I look forward to your future articles!
-Drew

I have a serious question for you, Victor. What role has visualization played in your success? This is something I poo-poo’d for quite some time but have recently been receiving lots of feedback about the importance of ‘seeing yourself as if you’ve already achieved your goal.’

I agree with you that everything begins in the mind but I’m curious how that plays out mentally. To what extent is visualization a useful technique in goal achievement and success?

Visualization has been very important but I never consciously did it. It always came natural to me and it should be totally natural for you to vision your future. It’s another word for daydreaming, but it works.

Here you go. What are you going to do tomorrow? Go to work, go to class, go to the supermarket, go to the bank, go to the gym. That’s visualizing the future but it’s mundane so it doesn’t seem like it. Visualization is picturing today what you will do tomorrow, next week, next year etc.

Awesome! I’m hustling hard every day with my business, thinking like a big business, and closing hard on my sales, but man, leading my small team like an army and delegating? Never thought about it like that. Thanks for helping change my life, Uncle Vic!

Thanks for this fantastic piece and for all the great knowledge you’ve passed on throughout the years.

30 Days of Discipline changed my life forever. I used to look forward to the weekend so I could binge on movies and bad food. Now I actually have to force myself to “relax”. Work is always on my mind. It’s become an addiction.

B&D is the one source of tough love all young men need, especially these days.

I will add my inputs. Yes words are definitely important. You don’t have to be all fancy with vocabulary but it does help to know many variety of vocabulary. The more words you know, the more you will be able to express yourself and connect yourself with many audiences. I’m still working on learning more vocabulary.

The thing I notice is the more I write, the more I can articulate myself better from previous days. Your words should flow like a rhythm. Remember short, concise and to the point is better than long and dragging words that don’t deliver powerful message.

Have brevity in your message. Quality over quantity. No need to speak 10 minutes when you can get the same message across in 2 minutes.

When reading articles or books, I highlight the most important key facts, words, and messages (sentences) and later I go back and re-read the parts I highlighted…. I first make sure I understand them. I re-phrase them and write them in my own words and my own ways and then I restructure them and try to condense and cut it down more if possible.

Then I write on doc, notepad, and make a pdf version of it and use it and apply the message in real life. Application after learning is important.

Now here is the challenge for anybody if they want.

Try to condense down what I wrote here and rephrase it and make it radiate the same meaning. I wrote like 20 ~ 22 sentences here (many of them run-on sentences and fragment problems). I’m sure if anybody could, they can condense that to 10 sentences and have it mean the same with perhaps better sentence quality and better choice of words.

“When reading articles or books, I highlight the most important key facts, words, and messages (sentences) and later I go back and re-read the parts I highlighted…. I first make sure I understand them. I re-phrase them and write them in my own words and my own ways and then I restructure them and try to condense and cut it down more if possible.”

I do this same thing. I read, I study, I highlight, I copy paste, then I re-write in words that make sense to me. I take extensive notes this way.

Great article. I like how in this article you have taken specific subjects and points of view you have covered before, but now you have nailed them down to their essence, mixed them together and given the whole lot a new perspective.

If one had to compare some of your previous articles that related to the subject matter in the various points of the article to how you portrayed them here, there would be a real example of cutting 5,000 words down to 250.

Happy birthday Vic, great post as usual. The difference between your articles and the rest of the fluff is that your message and conviction can easily be felt. I can clearly see you as if speaking to each of us directly. Thanks for sharing this with us, I hope the lost ones who need to hear can find it and get a kick in the ass like I just did.

Hey pal, this is a serious work of art. Just clipped this piece into Evernote. It’s definitely one to keep at hand. If this is what’s gonna be in the book, I can’t wait to see what’s in store man! Cheers for posting and sharing. Great stuff. DG

Hi Vic! I’ve been reading your blog for years, and you never stop to amaze me with your special talent of motivating people. Thank you that you’ve been killing the sloth in us all this time. Keep it up! I’m looking forward to your new book!

This morning I achieved doing 100 push ups in just 5 minutes. When I first tried doing them a few years back upon first buying 30dod It took me about 49 minutes, there was just so much hesitation and mental obstacles, now I just do them asap taking a breath or three in between each set.

Second, great article. I especially liked the part about work ethic winning out over intelligence. Both are important, but taking action wins every time. I read a quote by another entrepreneur that said, “even a mediocre idea put into action is still a thousand times more effective than a brilliant idea that remains stagnant.” Would you agree?

Happy Birthday Victor.
This is probably your best article.
Guess what, just yesterday I was listening to Henry Kissinger (arguably the most successful diplomat in human history, and the only one who served as Secretary of State and adviser for all the presidents since JFK) mentioned your #13 using your exact words.
“Intelligence is required for success, but..” … he was basically saying that what is truly needed is willpower and hard work because working on great objectives (including being President) is often a very lonely life.
So, you got the seal of approval by Henry Kissinger. Not bad!

Happy Birthday Victor! Thank you for a truly great article which will be read and re-read. Visualising tomorrow and being obbsessed about your mission are two elements that have been lacking in my life. That changes – now.

Just what I needed to read right now. When surrounded by the average person at an office job, your point about “if you’re awake, you’re working” can quickly become forgotten, as everyone celebrates the end of the day like some sort of cherished event.

This is great. Flash back to exactly a year ago I was getting ready to go to dental school. Not because I wanted to be a dentist but because I assumed you had to become a doctor or dentist to be rich. I was so wrong.

I read 33 ways to be the greatest and that forever changed my life. A year later, I’m balls deep in creating my business and this article gives me 34 ways to improve.

Perfect article , you helped me fixing my life , I will never thank you enough , there something called : glutathione , I think if you research about it , you will find it extremely interested and I’m sure you will write article about it , because it’s extrodinary like you , only a hint.

To help get in the right mental state to receive what Victor wrote, pay attention to the opening of this post. 4,000 Troy ounces of gold equals over $5.3 million at the time of my writing this, so read this article with the same level of intention that you would if someone just offered you $5.3 million in cash but you declined and read this article in it’s place.

Great article as always Victor. Being surrounded by so much victim mentality, i never see how much it brings me down. All it takes is an article like this to remind me why I’ve been up for 2 hours and probably won’t get to lay down for another 16. It’s like a breath of fresh air, being reminded i’m doing the right thing. Happy Birthday man.

Hi Victor,
Another piece of gold added to the BAD treasure.
Special greetings on your 34th birthday!
But for me, this is your 6th birthday when you started this blog and started to see not only the true purpose of your life but helped a thousand others to achieve or at least gave them the direction and motivation to do the same.
You probably have some idea of how many lives you have changed through this awesome platform but trust me there are way more lives changed through your words than you could imagine.
I can say so because I am one of those people who read every single word, absorbs the message and take action but never let you know through comments or emails.
This is the first time I’m commenting. You can call people like me the silent subscribers.
I have been following BAD from 2012 and read every article you posted (or may be deleted later like Bodybuilding Then and Now) and some even twice or thrice.
I am always waiting for your next post.
You have motivated me to start my own blog.
BAD helped me to get out of the 9-5 rat race and peruse my dream.
I promise you the first dollars earned through my website will be used to buy the e-book.
On this special occasion, special thanks from your silent subscriber.

Buddha once said … The mind is everything. What you think you become.” Buddha? Meh, heard of him, yadda, yadda. How about JESUS? He’s the ULTIMATE example, okay?

“Luckily for you I’m a kind and generous man, much like Buddha, and I have provided you this secret guide book generously free of charge.” Meh, Buddha is a mere man of flesh ‘n blood; he’s alright but nothing compared to JESUS. JESUS CHRIST is ALMIGHTY GOD! I got an even better book: the HOLY BIBLE (King James Version Holy Bible [KJV])! It’s an OPEN Book many unfortunately fail to take seriously and in so doing MISS OUT on GOD’S BLESSINGS and HIS MIRACULOUS POWER!

Mr. Pride excellent advice as always and quite accurate but in all honesty you are MISSING OUT on the supernatural POWER of GOD in the midst of DOING YOUR WORK. What you say is good and works but it’s of the WORLD it’s not of CHRIST. It would “stand forever”.

Not saying your advice is NOT right. Your advice is correct and accurate BUT it lacks the *BONUS* Power of GOD’S BLESSINGS in your life; which is ETERNAL. The wonderful advice and insight you’re putting out is great but it only works for this *temporary* earthly life; it doesn’t affect the Afterlife.

Are you concerned about the possibility of an Afterlife Mr. Pride? I am, and now I know.

Any great thinker and visionary ultimately wants to know if “life” “really mattered” and what happens in “death”.

In case you don’t realize, man is a SOUL. Man has a SPIRIT. This is what distinguishes humanity from mere earthly animals. THIS is why humanity has an in-built “moral compass” and can experience feelings such as “guilt”: why would anyone by “guilty” if there was no universal “Right” or “Wrong”? Hence MORALITY. Hence HUMAN CONDITION. Hence AKA SIN.

GOD created MAN perfect in the Beginning but when Adam and Eve and of course *sin* that changed the trajectory of all mankind since… Still that does NOT change the FACT that GOD created humanity and ALL OF CREATION.

I am curious to know you “understanding” on Lord Jesus Christ and Christianity if you ever want to share? You could email me privately or maybe someday write an article about it.

Again, I’m not telling you want to do; but I’m letting you know that ONLY GOD can give you the actual *GOOD SUCCESS* in CHRIST that matters ETERNALLY. Not just in this temporary, earthly life to which we are not promised another day to life, but in the ETERNAL LIFE.

That’s why I like coming here to your site and reading your stuff. It’s SPOT-ON knowledge for anyone in this world unbeliever or believer of God; because IT WORKS.

My main concern is that in the SPIRITUAL PLANE of things, this material you bring out WORKS but doing this work as an unsaved unbeliever means a person will NOT gain the actual (ETERNAL) BENEFITS of “working” as a BELIEVER.

For example, say, I do all your advice being a CHRISTIAN. As a SERVANT OF LORD JESUS CHRIST all my earthly labours and ambitions done on earth is DONE IN CHRIST’S NAME, so when I “die” or “pass on” and go to Heaven to meet Lord Jesus Christ, all the “good work” I did on earth” is racketed up as my “credit” for GREAT HEAVENLY REWARDS and not just the temporary “earthly money” I still get while I’m here on earth. See what I’m saying? I’m earning money BOTH WAYS: Heaven AND Earth! But if I just “work” as an unsaved unbeliever, yeah, I’m generating an income, taking care of myself and personal responsibilities, family and such (which is GOOD and responsible to do in line with GOD’S WORD for ‘a man that does not work should not eat’) BUT at the end of the day, I’m “unsaved” so if I did in my “sins” from not trusting on Jesus Christ to be SAVED from my sins and inherit eternal life; I’m going to end up in HELL and NOT HEAVEN.

That’s the point I’m trying to make here.

Please Mr. Vic and anyone reading this: do NOT go down the “hellfire path”. GOD EXISTS. The Afterlife is REAL.

I challenge ANYONE to say contrary because I know GOD is REAL and there is a REAL HEAVEN and a REAL HELL.

Please do NOT find out the “ETERNAL HARD WAY” that “HELL” is REAL!

If you or anyone else is serious about wanting to know if “God” actually exists, I’m the man for the report.

Happy Birthday Man. I like the way you think. Also happy to see you add guts to balls matter, because physically growing balls is not on my adjenda. You hit a lot of points in what seems to be popular in social media, for instance, “Be like water and flow with the current rather than trying to fight the current (and drowning in the process)”. There’s a line in my senior quote back in high school, saying “..Go with the flow and have a good time..” which I have questioned after seeing some super cool memes. It’s not only dead fish that go with the flow;) I also believe that the good old days of hitting the pavement is where it’s at, which will leave many lost. I value and appreciate your wise words.

Hey Victor, I am currently 20 years old back home from college and I am working a part time job at GNC. I am looking to invest in real estate and get my financial health figured out so that I can be financially free by 24. Should I continue working at GNC (22 hours a week) for the little extra cash or put all my focus onto becoming financially free. Thanks my Man.

For me I find #28 very helpful because I couldn’t find the right purpose in my life yet. I am in my second 30 DoD and I began to doubt and thought, maybe I am born to be a slave. But I think there is hope, because the feeling in me of being displaced in an office with negative cowards and unsatisfying work is a feeling a zombie doesn’t have.

Thanks to you I feel the manly site growing in me from day to day. Looking forward to your book. Thank you for your motivational articles and stay in good health!

Vic, what’s your opinion on college if it’s free? I’ll be a junior this fall at a widely known state university, and these past three semesters have been free from scholarships and grants, and semesters prior have been dirt cheap. This will will also be free. I’m studying computer network security, so I won’t have a wasted degree. What do you think?

Do I really need self study? I’m studying computer science at my college which you can’t self study on my own since it needs a lot of projects and hands on learning… I don’t think reading a bunch of books like you said above will help

Hi VP. Great stuff as always, however moths and butterflies both come from caterpillars, not one turns into the other. Just picking it up because I know that you want your work to be absolute top dollar!!

I am taking Kratom and clonazepa, L-Theanine, and run 6 miles a day to stay happy.
I made some mistakes in the past. The thoughts of those keep haunting me. I repented, pray to God everyday to make the thoughts go away. I am very much an introvert unless I have a few drinks. Do you have some advice to get happy again.. because I don’t feel happy anymore.

Rule 34. There’s nothing to give back, you’ve not taken anything from this new generation. I used to like “paying forward” from that Kevin Spacey movie, but that sounds like you’d expecting a defined return, which is foolish. “Giving forward” or “mentoring” is probably more accurate, you’re trying to steer them right. Still you’re the published author, what do I know, right? That bit’s gonna be annotated in my copy, is all.

Permit me to post the 34 Rules here as plain text. I printed them out and hung them to the wall on an A4 sheet, helps me keep focused:

1. It’s All In The Mind
2. Think Like A Master, Not Like A Slave
3. If you really wanted it, you’d find a way to get it
4. To get what you want all you have to do is take it
5. There’s only the mission
6. Hard times don’t last, but hard men do
7. Deserve’s got everything to do with it
8. There is no better time than right now
9. Don’t waste time, time is very important
10. You have to be ahead of the game
11. Create your own future
12. To make tomorrow great, start today with discipline
13. Intelligence is required for success, but..
14. Obsession and work ethic can beat lazy talent and intelligence
15. Focus on YOU, never focus on them
16. Be a PRO not an average Joe
17. Nobody has experience until they go get experience
18. Self-Study diligently
19. Learn before you earn
20. Two rules for what you read
21. How to pick the right idea to pursue
22. Never lose interest in your project by picking the right project
23. Become the company
24. Work 7 days a week
25. Play the game to win
26. Business plans are useless
27. Think about the big picture (Be like water)
28. Develop your big picture mission strategy
29. Think bigger by thinking smaller (FOCUS)
30. Create an ARMY to continue your work
31. Impose your will
32. Patience is key
33. Be the greatest there ever was
34. Give back to the new generation